Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

Don Pepe, in a mild and humorous voice, informed Father Roman
that Pedrito Montero, by the hand of Senor Fuentes, had asked him
on what terms he would surrender the mine in proper working order
to a legally constituted commission of patriotic citizens,
escorted by a small military force. The priest cast his eyes up
to heaven. However, Don Pepe continued, the mozo who brought the
letter said that Don Carlos Gould was alive, and so far
unmolested.

Father Roman expressed in a few words his thankfulness at hearing
of the Senor Administrador's safety.

The hour of oration had gone by in the silvery ringing of a bell
in the little belfry. The belt of forest closing the entrance of
the valley stood like a screen between the low sun and the street
of the village. At the other end of the rocky gorge, between the
walls of basalt and granite, a forest-clad mountain, hiding all
the range from the San Tome dwellers, rose steeply, lighted up
and leafy to the very top. Three small rosy clouds hung
motionless overhead in the great depth of blue. Knots of people
sat in the street between the wattled huts. Before the casa of
the alcalde, the foremen of the night-shift, already assembled to
lead their men, squatted on the ground in a circle of leather
skull-caps, and, bowing their bronze backs, were passing round
the gourd of mate. The mozo from the town, having fastened his
horse to a wooden post before the door, was telling them the news
of Sulaco as the blackened gourd of the decoction passed from
hand to hand. The grave alcalde himself, in a white waistcloth
and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves, open wide upon his naked
stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing robe, stood by,
wearing a rough beaver hat at the back of his head, and grasping
a tall staff with a silver knob in his hand. These insignia of
his dignity had been conferred upon him by the Administration of
the mine, the fountain of honour, of prosperity, and peace. He
had been one of the first immigrants into this valley; his sons
and sons-in-law worked within the mountain which seemed with its
treasures to pour down the thundering ore shoots of the upper
mesa, the gifts of well-being, security, and justice upon the
toilers. He listened to the news from the town with curiosity and
indifference, as if concerning another world than his own. And it
was true that they appeared to him so. In a very few years the
sense of belonging to a powerful organization had been developed
in these harassed, half-wild Indians. They were proud of, and
attached to, the mine. It had secured their confidence and
belief. They invested it with a protecting and invincible virtue
as though it were a fetish made by their own hands, for they were
ignorant, and in other respects did not differ appreciably from
the rest of mankind which puts infinite trust in its own
creations. It never entered the alcalde's head that the mine
could fail in its protection and force. Politics were good enough
for the people of the town and the Campo. His yellow, round face,
with wide nostrils, and motionless in expression, resembled a
fierce full moon. He listened to the excited vapourings of the
mozo without misgivings, without surprise, without any active
sentiment whatever.